Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): A Complete Guide to Digital Inclusion

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) ensure that people facing digital access barriers are not excluded from online life. Yet, despite living in an increasingly digital world, many organisations remain unaware of the existence of WCAG, let alone their purpose – or how to implement the necessary changes to improve website accessibility. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and why and how you should be putting them into practice on your website.

What is WCAG?

The purpose of WCAG is to make websites, apps, PDFs, videos, audio recordings, ePub, and other emerging technologies more accessible for people with disabilities. WCAG standards and updates are published by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C), which was founded in 1994 with the goal of developing a common set of principles that are effective for all internet users. WCAG are the gold standard in website accessibility standards, providing specific, technical, and measurable frameworks supported by in-depth documentation for implementation and remediation.

Who Needs Help with Web Accessibility?

On average, one in every five people has some form of physical or hidden disability that makes accessing online content difficult. An access barrier can be any element of website design or formatting that prevents users from reading and understanding the content. Common examples of internet users most likely to face online access barriers include people with:

  • Vision impairments, including colour blindness and deafblindness.
  • Hearing impairments like sensorineural hearing loss and conductive hearing loss.
  • Learning difficulties like Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, and Hyperlexia.
  • Attention disorders like ADHD.
  • Mental or neurological conditions like epilepsy, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease.
  • Autism.
  • Language/linguistic problems.
  • Physical disabilities.

Why Digital Accessibility is Important

Digital accessibility is most importantly about providing digital equality to all. The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone, regardless of disability, is an essential aspect. There are three common ways to quantify the opportunity of web accessibility:

1. Business Opportunity

Digital accessibility means business opportunity. The World Health Organization reports that over 1B people globally have a disability. From a buying-power perspective, people with disabilities and their friends and family have $13 Trillion in annual disposable income. Excluding people when there’s no need to do so is bad form and limits your global target audience.

2. Risk Avoidance and Legal Compliance

Legal risk is probably the biggest initial driver of web accessibility action today. In the United States, the volume of lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for claims of inaccessibility on the web break new records with each passing year. Similar legislation exists in other locations, including the European Accessibility Act (EAA) and the Accessible Canada Act. This guidance makes it clear that the WCAG are the means to measure whether a website is accessible or not.

3. Better Customer Experience

Digital accessibility means better customer experience and goodwill. When dev and design teams are appropriately considering the needs of all users, the customer experience of people with disabilities improves. Digital designs are more robust and resilient when they are accessible and usable without one of the major senses.

WCAG Compliance Levels

WCAG guidelines provide three levels of compliance to help organisations measure their progress:

  • A – The most basic level of accessibility, with criteria that are relatively easy to achieve.
  • AA – The benchmark most development teams aim to meet and typically the level referred to when talking about making content accessible.
  • AAA – The most comprehensive standard of accessibility compliance with an extensive list of criteria.

Key Accessibility Statistics

  • Global population with a disability: Over 1 Billion people.
  • Visual impairments: 2.2 billion people.
  • Hearing loss: More than 1.5 billion people.
  • Dyslexia: Affects at least 15% of the population.
  • ADA Lawsuits (2021): 4,055 lawsuits in the United States.
  • Annual disposable income: $13 Trillion (including friends and family).